More than a place to pick up a loaf of bread or gallon of milk, Vermont general stores are what anchor Vermont’s small communities. And like everything, they change to keep up with the times. Here are a few that have made notable upgrades:

J.J. Hapgood General StoreAs a child, Juliette Britton remembers buying penny candy or dipping into the pickle barrel at J.J. Hapgood General Store in Peru. From 1827 until it closed in 2008, “it was the heart of town,” explains Juliette. The store’s closure was “a void everybody felt,” she says — one she and her husband, Tim, decided to fill. After community input and extensive renovations, they reopened in 2013 with penny candy, a pickle barrel

Once largely a source of greasy all-hours sustenance, food trucks now drive food culture, anchoring movies and television shows and offering some really good food. Here are four very different operations from around the state.

⊕ The Common Kitchen’s Feisty Meatball
Known affectionately as “Ballinda,” this new truck is a project of Warren’s Common Man restaurant; it serves lunch from their parking lot. Chef Adam Longworth offers a rotating menu of meatball sandwiches, including classic beef topped with red sauce and mozzarella on a crusty, chewy Red Hen roll; vegetarian made with mushrooms, cauliflower, pine nuts and beans served with a spunky chipotle red sauce, sour cream and cilantro tucked into a pita; and Buffalo chicken with a Frank’s Red Hot cream cheese spread and blue cheese sauce on a soft potato roll.

Photo by Samantha Sheehan.

⊕ Fork in the Road
The winningest food truck team has got to be the beaming high school student crew working with the Burlington School Food Project’s fledgling program to build job skills in the culinary and hospitality field and improve food-system education. With support from Dealer.com, the truck served up locally made “Farm Franks” with various